


If I Forget You Just A Little (Come Back For Me)

by shopfront



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Amnesia, F/F, First Kiss, Getting Together, Reunions, Snow, Stuck in a Cabin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:35:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27668960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/pseuds/shopfront
Summary: If she just suddenly showed up, a brand new woman with a brand new face, what would you say? You know what, there'd be a serious chance I'd just snog her silly face off.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Bill Potts
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Public Call - Doctor Who fic exchange 2020





	If I Forget You Just A Little (Come Back For Me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheseusInTheMaze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheseusInTheMaze/gifts).



> Summary is an altered quote from Bill in [Doctor Who: LOCKDOWN | The Best of Days](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOJ0OU6Odh4)

Bill didn’t know how long she’d sat at the window with her fingers curled around her latest mug of tea. She had been watching the snow fall and it seemed like it’d been falling for a very long time before she noticed the banging sound. It was rhythmic and deep and sort of echoing like it was seeping into the room from all directions, yet it was somehow only just loud enough to catch her attention.

Frowning, Bill fought her way free of her blanket and stood up to investigate. Almost the very second her feet touched the floor though, the door to her cabin was flung open. A woman came careening inside, feet skidding beneath her as she came to a halt and immediately spun around to try and shut it again.

“Hiya!” the woman cried as Bill watched her do battle with the door. The wind howled like a wild thing, but that only seemed to encourage her to push harder. It was almost like something was trying to find its way inside as bit by bit she forced it back until finally the door closed and she collapsed against it, panting.

Once it clicked shut, the cabin descended back into its soothing, muffled stillness. The woman was watching Bill as she caught her breath and Bill just watched her back, her fingers twitching restlessly the longer they stared at each other. It was almost like there was something whispering faintly in the back of her mind - _go over there, you should have helped, check the door is really shut_ \- but Bill couldn’t bring herself to cross the short distance between them and she didn’t know why.

“Interesting storm you’ve got out there,” the woman said conversationally, distracting Bill from her thoughts before she could panic about it.

Humming vaguely in agreement, Bill nodded and the woman nodded back at her enthusiastically as her brow creased in thought.

“Who are you again?” she asked after a moment as she turned to tap at the door and cocked her head to listen to the resulting sound. “Only I have this funny feeling I’m meant to be finding someone in particular, like maybe they need my help.”

Bill blinked. “I’m Bill,” she said and took another sip of her tea.

“Bill,” the woman said slowly, stretching her name out. “I ‘spose it could’ve been a Bill, or maybe I’m looking for somebody else and you just happen to be here. Do you think you just happened to be here? I could’ve sworn I had a plan all mapped out in my head just a moment ago but now it’s escaped me. Odd, that. I don’t always bother with plans, maybe that’s why I’ve forgotten it.”

Bill just took another sip of her tea, not bothering to reply when the woman didn’t seem to be listening for one anyway.

“I’m the Doctor,” the woman continued as she slid a small metal object out of her pocket and started pointing it at everything, pressing something on it to make it hum while she turned in a circle until she was back facing the door. “That’s odd. I’m reading something outside, but I don’t remember seeing anything out there. Do you remember seeing anything strange outside?”

Shaking her head, Bill took another sip. “No,” she said, unconcerned. The Doctor frowned and lowered her arm, her full attention finally turning to Bill.

“What _are_ you doing here?” she asked.

Bill found she had to really think about that before she could answer. “I’m not sure. I think… I think I came here to get away for a bit,” she said slowly as she tried and failed to conjure a memory of arriving. “Yeah, that sounds right. I needed a time out from something, a bit of space to myself, y’know?”

The Doctor shrugged. “I guess that makes sense. Why’d you come here for space though? Seems a bit remote. Was that why? I ‘spose humans do like their remote places for little getaways. I enjoy a little getaway myself sometimes, as long as I can get my return timed right. That’s always the tricky bit.”

Bill felt herself starting to smile despite herself, and the Doctor immediately beamed back at her.

“Did your memory come back? Do you remember now?”

“No,” Bill replied happily and the smile fell off the Doctor’s face just as quickly. “No idea, really,” Bill continued as she stood on her tip-toes to try and peek out of the little window in the door that the Doctor was standing in the way of. “Seems nice here though. Look at how that glass is all frozen over, it’s all glittery and still. I like that, it seems cool, and it makes everything all cozy and stuff.”

The Doctor just kept looking at her, her eyes narrowed in thought. Then suddenly she tilted her head to the side and thumped at the higher side of it with the flat of her palm. Bill gaped, utterly at a loss - especially when the Doctor stopped thumping and stuck her finger in the opposite ear, pulling a face as she wriggled it around.

“Think I got snow in my ear,” she explained when she noticed the look on Bill’s face. “Not good, that. Pretty sure the snow here is a bit weird, though I still can’t remember why. It’ll come back to me, though. It always does.”

“Does it?” Bill asked, feeling a stirring of interest.

The Doctor didn’t answer though, darting away from Bill to look out the big picture window instead. Whatever she saw in the swirling wall of snow, she didn’t seem happy about it because she was frowning when she came back.

“How long have you been here? Has it been snowing all that time? I still have this funny feeling that somebody’s waiting for me; were you waiting for me?” she asked in rapid-fire sequence. Then her eyes widened, and she said Bill’s name - reaching out towards her, only to stop with her fingers just shy of touching Bill.

“If I am waiting for someone, I don’t think it’s you,” Bill answered with a shrug, eyeing the gap between the Doctor’s hovering hand and her own arm.

“That doesn’t make you curious?” the Doctor asked, tilting her head and stepping a little closer. “How do you know it’s not me that you were waiting for?”

Bill had to lean backwards to avoid being head-butted as the Doctor peered even more closely at her, staring into her eyes. She seemed satisfied with whatever she saw there but she didn’t step away again and that itch was back, niggling at Bill. There was something familiar about this woman; what if she was right?

“I’m… not sure,” she admitted reluctantly.

The Doctor’s eyes lit up and she whipped out her little metal object again, pointing it at Bill. The humming sound made Bill want to reach out and touch it. “Your readings have changed!”

“My what?” Bill asked, frowning as she fumbled to put her mug of tea down before the Doctor really did knock into her and spill it all over them both.

“It’s the snow,” the Doctor explained in a distracted tone as she looked at something on the object and frowned, then pointed it at Bill again. “It gets in your-,” she paused and waved her hand vaguely around her head, “-and gets you all turned around. Almost made me forget about the distress signal. It wants us to stay, I think. Hard to say really, it’s not at all like the last sentient snow I encountered. Doesn’t seem to have a voice, makes it difficult to ask questions.”

“Sorry,” Bill said slowly as she tried to parse through all of that until she finally settled on the question that seemed most important. “Did you just say that the snow is... alive?”

“Uh huh,” the Doctor said, still distracted as she looked at the object again. “Ah ha! It’s working, or it’s not working,” she said as she pocketed the object and grasped Bill by the shoulders, looking delighted. “Depends on how you look at it, I suppose. Bill, do you recognise me?”

“You’re the Doctor,” Bill pointed out dryly.

“Yes! Wait, no, I already told you that,” the Doctor said, her face going through a rollercoaster of emotions before settling into an intense look as she continued staring into Bill’s face. “I know I look a little bit different now, but try to remember me.”

That brought the itch back with a vengeance, and Bill gave into the urge to rub at the back of her head. It didn’t help though.

“That’s it, keep trying to remember,” the Doctor said encouragingly. “It’s just the sensation of you overcoming the telepathic field, try to ignore it. It’s practically harmless, just a mild suggestion really. I think it might be the only way that it knows how to convince us not to leave. You were never meant to stay in just one place though, Bill Potts. Neither of us were.”

“I know you,” Bill said with increasing certainty.

“Yes,” the Doctor said.

“You did come here for me.”

The Doctor’s smile widened. “Yes.”

“How’d you get here through all of that,” Bill asked, gesturing generally to the world outside the cabin.

The Doctor cocked her head, looking surprised at the question. Then she dragged Bill to the door and threw it open easily. There was no great gust of wind coming through the doorway this time though; it was almost like the door simply wanted to be open, the way it sprung out at the slightest touch. Bill was so engrossed by the puzzle of that, that it took her a moment to realise what she was seeing.

There was still snow, but there was no blizzard outside the door. Bill could see far into the distance, so far that what little dim light struggled down through the clouds faded away into the inky blackness of oncoming night, obscuring the horizon. Between that and them was a long, empty stretch of wide open space, covered in nothing but fallen snow. Snow that whipped along the ground in gentle flurries, sticking to strange shapes that dotted the landscape as if the snow had been whipped up suddenly by the wind and then frozen solid just as quickly.

“What-,” Bill wondered aloud, looking over her shoulder at the picture window, which was still a wall of white. The swirling, dancing patterns called to her through the glass, catching her attention and beckoning her to look closer. The chair beside it looked inviting with its little table holding her mug, and her blanket - though it was accidentally discarded on the floor now - all bright and cheery, like the perfect thing for huddling under on a bad weather day.

“Don’t look at that,” the Doctor said, sounding concerned.

Her fingers were warm on Bill’s cheek as she turned Bill’s face away, bringing hergaze back to the open doorway and to the Doctor. A little mound of snow had already started to gather unnoticed around their feet through the open door while Bill was distracted and the Doctor kicked it away with a disgusted sound, her hand never leaving Bill’s face.

“I came down from there,” the Doctor said, pointing up.

“Woah,” Bill said, following the direction of the Doctor’s hand until she could see the blue box that floated above them. The clouds were thinner around it, making it the only part of the sky that wasn’t entirely obscured by them; it was almost like the storm was trying to keep its distance from the box. “Wait, how’d you get down from there? How are we going to get back up? What’s even holding it up, it doesn’t look like it has any engines.”

“I fell,” the Doctor said matter of factly.

Bill’s eyebrows shot up. “You fell,” she echoed flatly.

“Well, sort of jumped-fell. There was plenty of nice soft snow for me to land in though,” the Doctor said as she waved a hand at the empty expanse. The shapes whipped up in the snow seemed to shine even more brightly at Bill on second glance, looking colder and more menacing and icy the longer she looked.

“Soft,” Bill said, her voice still flat.

The Doctor shrugged and smiled. “I knew you’d be worth it.”

The itch was back, but Bill didn’t try and ignore it this time. Instead she leaned into the impulse, wrapping a hand around the back of the Doctor’s head and tugging.

She tugged until the Doctor was in her arms and Bill could capture the Doctor’s mouth with her own. The Doctor made a muffled surprised sound against Bill’s lips, but she didn’t hesitate to kiss back. She wrapped her arms around Bill and kissed her back so thoroughly that Bill very nearly forgot everything all over again.

“God, I missed you,” Bill said when she broke the kiss.

She could hear the wonder in her own voice, and had half a thought that maybe she should be embarrassed about being so transparent - except this was the Doctor. It wasn’t just some random gorgeous woman who had literally fallen out of the sky to save her. The Doctor had seen Bill wonder at things before and he’d always encouraged it.

“I really, really missed you.”

She kissed the Doctor again before she could reply, just because she could.

“You still haven’t explained how we’re going to get back up to the TARDIS,” Bill murmured between kisses.

The Doctor pulled back only far enough to beam at her. “You remember the TARDIS!” she cried happily, planting another enthusiastic smack of a kiss on Bill’s lips in celebration. “There’s a staircase and I'm fairly sure she'll have finished extending it down for us by now.”

Starting to laugh, Bill pulled her closer to kiss her properly one last time. “Yes, I remember the TARDIS,” she said after, still chuckling as she turned to look out across the snowfield again. “It’s coming back to me slowly but it is coming back, and Doctor? There’s no staircase out there.”

“It’s invisible,” the Doctor said, trying to kiss her again.

Bill dodged the kiss, squinting to try and see something in the air below the TARDIS. “Invisible?” she asked skeptically, then brightened. “I want to know how that works,” she said, grabbing the Doctor by the hand and jumping down the cabin steps. “Will you show me? Before you explain to me when you decided to go blonde. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that it doesn’t suit you but it is a bit of a surprise.”

The Doctor’s momentarily disgruntled expression at being dodged was already fading as she followed Bill down. “We’ll have to be quick,” she cautioned. “Before the snow realises that it can reach us again. If you look at it from this angle you might notice-”

Bill let the Doctor tug her out into the snow flurries, nodding as she listened. She held on tighter whenever her shoes skidded on an icy patch, unable to stop grinning even when they were forced to break into a run to escape an oncoming wall of snow. There wasn’t time for her to stop and marvel at the appearance of the staircase that led them up, up, and finally to safety, but there was the Doctor still there holding her hand so Bill figured that was alright. Bill would just have to make her show Bill the staircase again later, anyway.


End file.
